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Opinion: The FDA's Genetics Power Play

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... I ... I ... welcome back to Opinion Journal why Mary Kissel ... that the drug Administration has moved to ban ninety nine dollar genetics facts are the really so bad for you ... and what is the FTA so concerned about I've got editorial board member Joe radio here ... I can tell from the understanding ... companies like twenty three in the next company issued here ... are literally give consumers more information what's what's wrong about that hope there's there's nothing wrong with that the the FDA is a gracious agency that the leaves and serve regulate ... anything having to do with with health care and twenty three me it's a ... Silicon Valley startup it's you know come to think because of the tech companies is a tech company ... and third they don't have the kind of ... regulatory sophistication ... it's necessary to get their product approved by FDA so they've they've been fighting with them for for years now an FTA is just come drawn up its hands and said ... you're you're you're product must immediately be banned from the market until we get that are approved but what is the FTA sparking a because I must've said something when they came out ... with this announcement ... right with the FDA says is that patients can be trusted with this information about their own bodies ... they say you know they they might self direct their own courses care if they find out that they have ... you know for for example the on the RCA of risk variants that increases ... the chances of women getting breast cancer they say ... well they're they're going to potentially get a prophylactic surgery ... for it there's there's going to be worried or or or whatever ... and ... I mean it's almost as if they've no idea about how people actually live ... real people if they realize ... that what what what would ... people that you don't get it going to talk to her doctor double checked into its results ... show how the company also be held liable for something that someone else to license third parties isn't that what they're basically saying his company ... well I I don't see how they can possibly ever get approval for genetic testing and there are thousands of genetic tests out there ... the only two coated the human genome ten years ago worse this is an emerging field ... were just beginning to understand ... I don't know exactly how many drugs the FDA approves every year but it's not a very high numbers maybe twenty or thirty ... there are thousands of potential Test ... potentially hundreds of thousands ... any FDA is going to go through and approve each one I mean it's impossible to get into our health is harmed ... by this FDA process that they're actively stopping us ... from getting the kinds of ... medicines that are approved in Europe and Australia in stopping us from things like genetic testing I think they significantly slow the pace of medical patient ... the shape of what what is able to find it because it has to get through ... this issue ... so yeah I tried to think it's it's it's it's that the actively harmful ... okay really that that editorial board member jury ... instead